Notes

[1]
N. A. Orlov, author of the book Prodovolstvennaya rabota
sovetskoi vlasti (The Soviet Power’s Food Supply Work) (1918), was
in charge of the economic department of the journal Novy Mir,
which was published by the Soviet embassy in Berlin. Orlov
requested permission to write a book, Economic History of Soviet
Russia (Research Essay), and to publish it abroad under a
penname in several foreign languages. He believed it was better to
have the book written not from an openly communist standpoint,
but in the tone of an objectively minded non-Party researcher,
taking a favourable view of the Soviet power. For, argued
Orlov, writing in “a clearly apologetic vein ... fails to produce
the desired impression” (Central Party Archives of the Institute
of Marxism-Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee).

Lenin’s proposal was adopted by the Politbureau of the
R.C.P.(B.) Central Committee on December 7, 1921.